Preschool-Kindergarten Supplies

1. Crayons $3.50
This is for basic 8-16 pack crayola crayons.
The more desirable and higher count crayons
Will be more expensive, knock off brands like
Rose will be slightly less.
2. Elmer's Paste $1.00
One small jar of white paste
3. Scissors $3.00
One pair of blunt tip safety scissors,
various colors will cost more.
4. 1 dozen #2 pencils $2.75
This is the basic price for plain yellow pencils.
Colored, glittered or printed pencils will cost
significantly more, even up to $10.00.

5. Ruler $0.50
The plain wooden ruler, flexible plastic, colored,
or printed rulers will cost more.
6. Smock $6.00
A lot of schools do not provide individual smocks
although they usually still provide the finger
paints and other messy activities where smocks are
needed. Printed aprons can cost more up to $15.00.
7. Eraser $0.75
The classic big pink eraser... other colored or
oddly shaped ones will cost more.
8. Storage box $5.00
Most children will need some sort of small art box.
A lot of classrooms for young children simply have
large tables and not desks, their supplies are kept
in cubbyholes along the perimeter of the classroom.
9. Kleenexes 4 packs $5.00
This is also another thing that isn't so simple.
Kids will want to find the brightly colored boxes that
have all the designs and cost significantly more.
10. Back pack $20.00
It may be a little cheaper or go up to $100.00 if
your kid is really picky about the brand name.
I know it's hard to believe that a four year old
could be picky about a brand name, but remember what
they're influenced by. Also, backpacks with spiderman
or dora the explorer will run a bit higher than $20.00.
11. Lunch Box $10.00
This is for a basic primary color cloth lunch bag.
Usually young children (if they're going to have a
lunch box), will want it to match their backpack and
it will run a bit higher.
12. Wide ruled chart paper 3 tablets $12.00
This is the classic paper with the giant lines to help
young children learn to form letters.
13. Folder $0.10
Most children will require at least one folder to bring
home important papers and homework so that the papers
are not crumpled in their little back packs. A .10 cent
folder is well, what you pay for. Children usually will
want something printed with their favorite characters
and they can run up to $4.00 or so just for one folder.
14. School Books $75.00
In many states parents will have to pay to rent text
books. Even for a child in preschool or kindergarten
these “rentals” can run near to $100.00. Most of these
books are going to be buy only books as they will be
soft work books. The buy only ones are usually
expensive considering they may only be 60 pages. States
they provide school books usually have higher property
taxes.

Total = $144.60
Total w/o books = $ 69.60



Something else of note, the child will often have need to do school projects at home that require the same school supplies mentioned above. Usually, the teacher will not allow any student to take home their little box of school supplies and it's usually recommended that you have two sets. A parent may also have need to purchase things like construction paper or poster board to complete these projects. Throughout the school year, these supplies will often need to be replaced which comes to even more cost. I only listed basic school supplies, but when a child is walking through the school supply isle they usually want to buy markers and colored pencils and all sorts of items that aren't on the basic list. I think if parents really want to save money on school supplies they shouldn't even bring their child to the store with them. They should just buy whatever is cheapest and what is on the list. If you take your kid with you, the supplies could cost well over $200.00 rather than the mentioned $70.00. This is also for a young child, as kids get older they’ll need more and more supplies that are more varied and expensive. Not to mention the cost of books. My senior year of high school, my total book cost reached up to nearly $400.00 (for rentals, I only had two books that I actually kept and they were soft workbooks for French and Latin).

So a kid has their books and tools for the school year, and then you have to think about the clothes and shoes. It's highly doubtful your child can fit into the clothes from last school year, so here comes an entirely new wardrobe. Not to mention, a fair amount of public schools now have uniform policies.

While the initial price of basic school supplies is not unmanageable for a young child, I think if a community wants their government to provide school supplies they have to know the money has to come from somewhere. This is usually going to mean higher property taxes. When you compound the price of school supplies with new clothes/shoes and books then that’s a price that can be overwhelming to many parents.

An alternative to relieve parents? Schools could easily purchase materials in bulk for half the cost of less and simply have parents buy these materials when they register their children without the school being tempted to make a profit. For a family on a strict budget 35 bucks is a lot less than 70. For a family that can just fling money around, I doubt they'd care and still buy all the crazy colored and shaped supplies.

*I took prices from various vendors online vendors including wal-mart/target etc.